Page 19 of Love Letters to Christmas

I can’t do it. I cannot. I justcan’t. “What kind of muffin is this?” I ask, leveling my tone so it’s conversational, not pitching.

She brightens. “Bran.”

Bran.

Who hurt her? How badly do you have to be hurt to confirm that something isbranso chipperly? Yet again, I find myself compelled to seek out an audience andhave wordswith her parents.

Maintaining glistening positivity, Amelia—dear, sweet, innocent Amelia—says, “It’s a healthy recipe I found in this new book I got. It has bran, walnuts, and raisins in it.”

Raisins? There areraisinsin this? No. No, thank you. Bless everything that I managed to get a bite with none ofthose. One of the reasons Mars and I bonded in an odd way was, first and foremost, because he made absolutely gorgeous ransom notes, and, second and secondmost, becausewe both hate raisins.

We practically held back one another’s hair that one time the lunch lady at our school bestowed a deceptively chocolate chip looking oatmeal raisin cookie upon us. Our eyes met, faces green, across the cafeteria, and solidarity had never been so pitiful.

I’m pretty sure Jove threatened that woman into never doing it again because my tastebuds were never more affronted so heinously…but…well…

Where did Amelia even get raisins and bran? Why is she going to the store by herself? She’s tiny, and pretty, and too friendly for city crowds. Someone is going to take her home, and then I’ll have to call in a favor with Mars. That favor, naturally, being murder, but—

Amelia has been talking.

I zone back into the conversation and find her fiddling with her fingers as I pull into our reserved parking spot. “It’s just I realized that we’ve been eating a sugar-heavy breakfast for weeks…so when a healthier muffin recipe fell into my lap, I decided to try it out and look up more.”

Healthier?Healthier.

Amelia, I am too spoiled now to consumehealthiermuffin recipes. What do youmeanhealthier? You make dinners withdesserts. It’s too late for us.

Doe, her eyes lift, and my chest squeezes. “You…don’t like it, do you?”

I would rather die than disappoint her. And, yet, I cannot. If there are raisins in this, I will not be able to force them down. “I’m so sorry,” I whisper. “I don’t like raisins.”

“You don’t like raisins,” she whispers, breathless, eyes going huge.

I shake my head. They are the devil’s fruit. I am positive they grew, dried and shriveled, upon the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Eve plucked a desiccated grape from the boughs, and Adam—the fool—ate it for his love of her.

Such a love I am incapable of, I fear.

It is with a heavy heart that I admit…I would not even do it for my love of mail.

Some things are not fit for consumption. And mail would never ask me to.

“I—” Amelia begins, then stops, and bites her lip. Her eyes cut off me as she reassesses her words. Evil raisin bran muffin aside, I’m proud of her. She’s been making concentrated efforts lately to apologize less. Just yesterday, she was in the living room. Sitting there. Doingnothing. It looked like she wanted to die, or like she was waiting for me to kill her, but it’s beautiful to see her on a personal growth journey. Carefully, eyes lowered, she proceeds, “I didn’t know you didn’t like raisins. I can makethem again tomorrow, without the raisins.”

Haha. “No, no,” I say. “No need for that.” I lift the abomination. “See, the problem with this is that…” How do I put this kindly? “…it’s all bad.”

“O-oh.”

Crap. I cough. “Allow me to rephrase: my body no longer yearns for health. It wants chocolate chips, and strawberry cream, and coffee with the sugar crumbles. It will accept zucchini. It will cry if you feed it parsnip.”

“How did you know I found a parsnip muffin recipe?”

I come very close to swearing. “You are, surely, joking.”

She shakes her head. “It’s in my new book.”

“What’s the world coming to?” First, it moves into an electronic era, making personal letters far less common. Then, it starts puttingparsnipsinmuffins.

“I was going to get slivered almonds for the topping after work today…”

“And that’s another thing!” I set the offensive muffin down, in the plastic bag, that I keep in my car to use as a trashcan.

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